View from the Green Room: ‘Joxer…Th' whole worl's…in a terr…ible state o'…chassis’
The cast of Juno and the Paycock which was performed at Brewery Lane Theatre.
Well…just about every amateur theatre company has done Seán O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock. Except Brewery Lane Theatre. Because they are now on their fifth production of the O’Casey century-old classic beginning in the early seventies. I brought all our Leaving Cert classes to Carrick-on-Suir, where we had the entire theatre to ourselves for a splendid production back in 1989 that still remains in the memory 36 years later. Where did those years go?
Juno always delights because of its wonderful mix of comedy, tragedy, plotline and characters we can all identify in our own lives although the context is largely missing because the violence of the 1922-23 Civil War, where atrocity followed atrocity, is now no more than an essay in a history book.
O’Casey’s drama today largely centres on the disintegration of the O’Boyle family when outside events come a-calling. Capt. Boyle’s heroic and fantasist adventures of himself as a sea captain "sailing from the Gulf of Mexico to the Antarctic Ocean", a philosopher interested in the puzzles of the universe and a Republican patriot who "done his bit in 1916" and now wants to join a flying column "as a last resort" never cease to delight an audience.
Jackie Boyle (the excellent Barry Comerford) is everyone’s favourite father – providing he’s not yours! However, Boyle has all the landmarks of an alcoholic personality driven by his own needs: grandiose, aggressive, cunning and self-justifying.
Much of the comedy comes from the physical interplay between Boyle and his side-kick Joxer (the hilarious Johnny Irish), who is an even bigger waster than Boyle himself is. Parasite and primer to all of Boyle’s fantasies, shoulder-shruggin' Joxer’s verbal gymnastics make him the perfect and willing fall guy to all of the Captain’s schemes to avoid work.
Paula O’Dwyer’s exceptional hard-nosed Juno is typical of O’Casey’s strong women who dominate his plays. Juno is the only bread-winner in the family and her struggle to put food on the table for her ne’er-do-well husband, her striking daughter Mary (movingly portrayed by Eibhlín Power) and her injured and constantly complaining Republican son Johnny (Finn McLoughlin) is the stick that moves the drama.
Outside forces disrupt the Boyle household and, ultimately, destroy it.
A £2,000 legacy from Jack’s relative Mr Ellison of Santry promises new beginnings for the Boyles – freedom from work for Boyle and from poverty for Juno, marriage for Mary to Neil Bourke’s slithery Charlie Bentham NT and an escape for Johnny from the Diehards who hold him responsible for betraying his murdered comrade, Robbie Tancred.
Sadly, a mistake in the framing of William Ellison’s will leads to unimagined consequences for the Boyle family – bankruptcy, Mary’s pregnancy and Johnny’s bloody execution by the Diehards.
Juno’s heroic failure to keep outside forces from destroying her family is well-flagged by the entry into her slum dwelling of many others – sewing machine salesman (Paul O’Keefe), coal vendor (Peter McGrath), furniture removers (David Shea and Walter Power), along with Diehard Irregulars (Kyle Walsh and Liam Wells). The songs and the camaraderie in the party scene funded with loans to Boyle from the poorest of the poor in the tenement provide much fun but lasting bitterness.
Colm Power directs with fun and pace in the first two acts and the final tragicomic ending rings true in Mrs Boyle’s repetition of the Mrs. Tancred speech on the futility of war and the inhumanity of man.
The violence of the Irregulars and the terror they bring is now largely lost as the context – thankfully – of those troubled times is mostly forgotten. Time has caught up with O’Casey’s best drama.
However, the image of a drunken Boyle lying on the floor of his tenement stripped of all furnishings, without a red rex to his name and neither wife nor child to comfort him, makes for stark drama.
Well done Brewery Lane Theatre for yet another splendid production.
